The awesome Amazon basin!

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Most people arriving for a tour of the Amazon would be well prepared in advance - drink plenty of fluids the night before, get a good nights sleep and brace yourself for the humidity, heat and general uncomfortable ness of Amazon life. Not us.
Drink fluids we did the night before, just the wrong type, and lots of the wrong type. And so on the morning of our flight (the night after our hostel trivia quiz and celebratory shots at winning best team name) to Rurrenabaque a small town in the Beni region of North East Bolivia from where we would start our tour of the Amazon, we were hungover to death. Dragging our sorry arses out of the hostel and to the airport, all we could think of was cold diet coke and Mcdonalds. Jess was that hungover she looked like she needed oxygen and a drip to function, Natalie could not be farther than a toilet for more than 2 minutes, i was still drunk, and Jack, well Jack was fine, which annoyingly he always seems to be, despite drinking enough beer to comatose me, or a small bear.
We had heard and read that the plane ride to Rurrenabaque was in a ´small plane´, so i dont know why we were surprised when we started boarding.....this plane was tiny. Obviously not light aircraft tiny, but considering it was to carry 22 passengers, it was pretty damn small. Firstly, it was a waste of time arguing with Natalie over the window seat for the trillionth time this trip. We all had one. Yes, single seating, 10 by 2 and a few seats at the back. Quite surreal, but very cool. When you are on the ground. Jack, who is a giant of a man at 6ft 3 almost had to get on his hands on knees to board the plane, it really was that small. From where i was sat i could have given the pilot a tug on his mullet, lets just say it was ´close´.
So the propellors start, and we brace oursleves for take off, and landing, which we were told would be in 32 minutes. Rurrenabaque is a 14 hour bus ride from La Paz, and just 32 mins by air, so you can imagine the type of terrain you have to go through to get there by road. We would de dropping to 1000 meters above sea level from the breathless 3600 meter heights of La Paz and we were all looking forward to being able to breathe again without wheezing like an old stiff. The 32 minutes went really smoothly, despite my hands being clammy enough to wring out and every sudden drop the plane took my scrambled eggs were close to becoming a floor mat, but we arrived in one piece. Natalie, annoyingly, jumped off the plane saying how much she enjoyed it, all brave and non scared. I wobbled off like an old man, sobering up, feeling like I had just had a plunger shoved down my throat by someone desperate to suck out my brekkie. Moving on...
So Rurrenbaque is f*****g hot. And its f****** humid too. After sub zero temps the week before on the salt flat tours, we had given up all hope of being warm at night again, but Rurrenabaque is quite honestly the hottest place i have ever been to, ever. And considering we have lived in Australia for the last 2 and bit years, its saying something. I think it might be more the humidity, but you are never more than a minute without a beaded sweat all over your face, a soaking top amd a wet wedgy up your bum. Its hot, sunny, sticky and having been here for a week now...it sucks!
But on to why we were here. The Amazon! After much deliberation, the 4 of us decided that we would take a tour of the Pampas for 3 days and 2 nights. The Pampas are a series of amazing savannah like wetlands that contain a whole host of bio-awesomeness inclkuding birds, animals and plants. The other option is to go into the denser jungle but we had been told that there is less chance of seeing wildlife there and we definitely wanted to get our beady eyes, and cameras on some cool animal life.
So the next day, at 9am, after the hottest nights sleep of our lives, we were up bright and early at our tour office, being loaded into a jeep with two other travellers - Juan, and Juan, from Prague. Now, when travelling, ones apparel is not a focus point and you dont give a shit what you look like, but also, that doesnt mean that you pick the most garish looking travel gear in which to visit the amazon, especially when you are joining a group of 20 something piss takers like Nat, Jack, Jess and I!! Juan 1 had an amazing pair of camoflauge, come 80´s hyperglow cargo pants, bandana and t shirt. And Juan 2 had the most amazing hat - a cap that had a DETACHABLE, YES, DETACHABLE, mullet flap to keep those pesky rays of his chezch republic shoulders!! They were quite a site, we werent sure whether they were brothers or lovers or just mates, but they certainly knew how to dress...or not.
We had a 3 hour jeep ride to meet our boat/massive canoe which would then take us on our 3 day tour of the pampas. On route, we had a driver that was an absolute psycopath and was driving at 90 miles per hour along a dirt road, covered in dust, in and out of rivets so deep you could lie in them . It was quite frankly, pretty terryfying as this driver was going so fast he would never had been able to stop had a bus or another jeep just appeared out of the dust in front of him. I swear, had Jess not been in the back seat with Nat and I, she would have grabbed that dude by the balls and ripped them out she was so fired up at his pertol head antics! We gave him a bit of a bollocking, told him to slow down and we arrived in one piece, just.

After loading up into our big canoe with our guide Lewis, Juan Juan and our cook Tina, we set off on the journey down stream to our lodge which would be home for the next 2 nights. The agenda was pretty straightforward. Travel to the lodge on day 1, and swim with the pink river dolhpins. Day 2 was anaconda hunting and pirhana fishing, and day 3 was up for sunrise and swimming with river dolphins again, not a bad way to spend 3 days of your life!
Now, we had been told to expect to see caimans (crocodiles) pink river dolphins (i know, awesome!!) large river rodents, monkeys, turtles and snakes, but i didnt expect to see them literally as soon as we set off!! I am not talking it up (which would be easy to do seeing as i work in advertising) but within minutes we were gliding past caimans about 3 meters away from us, large river rodents called Capybara that look like mini, furry hippos, pink river dolphins, heaps and heaps of cute turtlres drying out in the sun, massive birds that when they stand up are almost the size of a small adult and a whole host of otehr birds i have no idea what they are called!! It was absolutely phenominal, it was like being in a big, natural zoo, there were caimians everyhwere!! The way they are so still when you go past is quite eery, its like they are looking at you saying ´you bunch of fools,. sitting in that stupid boat, all hot and sweaty just to look at us hanging out doing nothing´. They really do have a look of utter carelesness on their faces, which i think is cool! When it came to the time for our ´swim´, Jack the adrenalin man was in in a shot, despite the fact we had glided past a caiman, less than 10 seconds ago! But after reassurance from our guide and not wanting to look like and feel like a ponsey wanker, i was over the edge, submerged in dark brown amazonian waters, getting bitten on the nipples by sardines (which really hurts!!) All around us pink river dolphins would surface every now and then but we never got a real good look at them as not only were they few and far between, they never really got that close. Still, swimming in caiman infested waters with pink river dolphins is hard to beat. Nat flirted with the waters edge, going knee deep just to cool off and having a head dunk. Jess took a while to get in but the Tassy got the better of her and soon she was fully in too! After an absolute blessed cool down, we were back in the boat and heading to our lodge for the night. Our lodge was basic but sold beer and Tina made us the best food - rice, pasta, chicken, freshly squeezed juice, the lot. We had to get an early night, not only becasue being awake was too painful in the humidity but we had to be up at 7am to go and see some anacondas!
Well, getting to sleep was never going to be that easy, not when you have 2 girls terrified of spiders (OK, Jess can bare them a bit more than Nat) but Nat has minimal tolerance for spiders. And here we are in the Amazon. Nice. No sooner had we all climbed into bed and laboured over tucking our mosquito nets in to stop the blighters eating us alive, Natalie let out an almighty shriek. I have heard Nat scream before at the tiniest of creatures but never this loud! She was adament she had seen a spider in her bed, and a big one. So out i get, looking like a right idiot prancing around in the dark in my calvin klein boxers in the middle of the rustic jungle, trying to save my girlfriend from the clutches of the evil spider. Simple truth is, i hate them too. JACK! Get here mate! When we found it, it was pretty big, it had a good sized body on it and big hairy legs. Nat had reason to scream. Even funnier was when we turned the torch on, she has a bat on top of her bed too!! Only Nat!! So following that, it took Nat a good 15 minutes before she would ´go horizontal´, so as the rest of us drifted off to sleep in the humidity of the night, Nat sat there, bolt up right too afraid to lie down!!!!!!
Anaconda hunting was awesome, but kind of sad. We all felt a bit eco unfriendly walking about trying to find snakes, and had asked our guide not to touch one if he found one as we had seen and heard of people having their photos taken with snakes round their necks which is just mean to the animals. After a very hot, very sweaty, but very exciting walk through head high reeds, bush land and fields, one of the guides found a 3 meter anaconda chilling out under a bush. He was an impressive chap, although we were told he should have been alot fatter, so they thought he mioght have been sick. Probably all the tourists hunting him down, he was like snake celebrity, he couldnt handle the limelight i dont think. Still it was amazing to see a massive anaconda in real life and made for a fun morning of exploration around the pampas.
That afternoon we went pirhana fishing!! The journey there was awesome as we kind of went further up river than most ofhter boats do. We noticed much more wildlife and also how the caiman were a bit more fesity in the water. Quite a few of them would make a bit of a splash when the boat came near, which at first was a bit unsettling but real fun after a while. We fished using pieces of chopped up meat and a simple hook and line. Over the course of the two hours, Jack and our guide managed to catch about 15 between them, whilst i maanged to catch...2 dogfish!!! Do not ask how, only i could go to the Amazon pirhana fishing and come out with bloody guppies. Nat said she felt like she was ´feeding pirhanas´ versus actually fishing for them as no sooner had you dropped your line in the water, they would take the meat and bugger off leaving you catchless. Of the ones we did catch, it was amazing to look at them up close, and thri razor sharp teeth were just that, incredible! They also tasted good for dinner that night, albeit small!
I could go on, but we saw and experienced so much cool stuff its impossible to talk about it all. Watching baby caiman at night, getting up close and feeding squirrel monkeys bananas, watching sunset and sunrise, easily some of the best i have ever seen. One final highlgiht was on the last day when we went swimming on the way home. As we stopped in a ´safe´ area our guide got out of the car and started calling ´Pedro, Pedro´ and whistling like he was calling a dog. We couldnt beleive it when from across the river, a caiman came crawling out for the bushes, swam across the river and walked right up to the bank in front of us!! He was no more than 1 ft away from us, fricking crazy!!! Even more crazy was after we had said hi to Pedro caiman (like you do) we were swimming in waters with caimans just watching us all around the banks. For some reason, we didnt feel scared, despite the fact the water was thick as mud and anything could be lurking underneath you. Though, i have to say, with the amount of Amazonian bean created gas we were all releasing everytime we went swimming there was no chance Pedro and his mates could get close.
By the time we arrived back in Rurrenabaque on day three we were all absolutely dried up husks. We were covered in dirt, any clothing lighter than black had turned brown and our hair and skin felt like straw. We were sun burnt, dehydrated and absolutely knackered!
So for the last few days we have been chilling in Rurrenabaque at the local pool, lazing about in hammocks (which are everywhere) and drinking cold beers. We are actually standed now as it has been raining a bit so no planes can take off back to La Paz as the air strip is too muddy! Hopefully we will make it onto a flight tomorrow morning, if not its back to the hammocks and beer! And humidity! Ugh!

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Comments

[locojhon]

Way cool story,,,
Been to Bolivia 3 times so far, but not yet to Rurrenabaque. Perhaps next trip--so much to see and experience--so little time. What a time you experienced--awesome! Bolivia has become my favorite country to visit, and I wouldn't mind living there--everything is so fantastic in almost every sense of the word--from the overwhelming good to the occasional very bad. It is a land of superlatives in the midst of incredible poverty. It is a place where the value placed upon using some measure of common sense could be one's life--a very exciting environment that hasn't been plasticized, macadamized or fenced away,,,yet. Want to look over the edge into the abyss, or hug a caiman?? Go for it--and if you fall or get eaten--it's your own damned fault--with no one to sue afterward--perfect (for my sense of freedom, at least). I love the people, the land and the culture--including some of the best food I have ever eaten, with (often) cut-it-with-a-fork beef that would make many 5-star's envious. Bolivia is the king of sopas (soups, or stews) that are available everywhere. Some towns famous for their BBQ'd pigeons--others for their guinea pigs--all scrumptious when done well. Llamas--similar to venison in taste and texture--are awesome (like venison) when done 'right'. Your descriptions seem to be accurately humorous and enjoyable, and well worth the read. Thank you.